Acute Care Nurses

Acute care nurses provide advanced nursing care for patients with acute conditions such as heart attacks, respiratory distress syndrome, or shock. They care for pre and post-operative patients or perform advanced, invasive diagnostic or therapeutic procedures.

Patients who have experienced severe illness or trauma and require pre and post-operative care, or have other urgent medical conditions require acute care nursing. The acute care nurse job description focuses on improving a patient’s health with rapid intervention under time-sensitive conditions. They work with fewer patients at any given time who require complex monitoring and continued vigilance.

Acute care nursing is one of healthcare's most challenging disciplines involving the treatment of patients diagnosed with serious conditions in clinical settings like accidents & emergencies or intensive and neonatal care.

Acute care nurses' certification requires further training in intensive care spanning over one to two years, advanced certification, appearing for higher-level examinations and getting licensed. Other than required skills like critical thinking and decision-making in urgent situations, they need to be highly empathetic and compassionate, and able to communicate with and educate patients and their families.

They can find jobs in hospitals, ambulatory services and private home care and acute care nurse practitioner salary are usually high but there can be long and tiring work hours.

To be successful, acute care nurses should be prepared to think quickly, be on their feet, and adapt to the demands of ongoing medical situations.